Hansard

I am glad to get up and speak in the debate, even though I have just lost half my speech. As I am used to speaking in quite controversial and combative debates, it is good to be able to talk about an issue that has general agreement in the chamber. [Interruption.] I thank my esteemed colleague Mr Hepburn for handing me back the half of my speech that I dropped. If anything, although we accept that more should be done, we all generally agree that progress has been made.

My constituency has benefited from bus services. Indeed, the number 10, which has already been aired quite a bit this afternoon, runs through Edinburgh Central. I personally benefit from the service, not in a registrable interest sense but because I live very close to the route. Most crucial of all for me as a constituency MSP is that my newsletter has benefited from a picture of me sitting in the driver’s seat of a number 10 bus with a big cheesy grin. All of these things are important to me as an MSP.

My colleague Gordon MacDonald, who will speak later, will perhaps give a perspective on Lothian Buses that he has picked up from working with the company. However, as a customer and user, I certainly have a perspective on green buses and Lothian Buses. Unusually—or perhaps usually; we do not really compare transport habits in the chamber—I do not drive or cycle. Instead, I am one of those Edinburgh residents who are largely if not entirely dependent on either their own two feet or public transport to get around the city. Taking the bus to and from surgeries can be quite interesting, particularly when I get looks from the person whom I have just seen and who is probably thinking, “What? An MSP using the bus?” We need to get to a situation in our society where that sort of thing is not remarkable and is, indeed, perfectly normal. On the subject of perfectly normal, anyone who, after that admission, compares me with Stewart Stevenson will get an invitation to take it outside.

The introduction of the number 10 service has marked a step-change in quality as well as improving the environmental credentials of Lothian Buses. For a start, it has given the company an opportunity to renew its vehicles. In London, which Iain Gray referred to, the bus fleet is of real quality. A lot of people have said that Edinburgh has the best bus service in Scotland—and it certainly has. Having dared to step on buses in Glasgow, I just do not think that the service in that city competes. I note, however, that buses in London provide crucial information for tourists. Anyone who has used public transport in cities abroad knows that it is all important to know where one is, and the number 10 service provides invaluable information about stops. Indeed, it reflects very well on the status of Lothian Buses as an essentially publicly owned company.

As anybody in Edinburgh would be proud to confirm, the company is viewed with great warmth as the people’s buses, and it is perfectly in keeping with that tradition that it is so progressive in embracing the number 10—not only using the green bus fund, but levering that money so that it ends up with even greater investment.

I have seen the same progressiveness in other issues on which I have dealt with Lothian Buses, such as allowing buggies on to buses. There have been some difficulties with that—anybody in Edinburgh who has seen a parent with a buggy left at a bus stop will understand some of the deep difficulties that there had been with that—but the buses now have spaces for them and the policy across the whole system is that parents can get on. That is another example of the progressive attitude that Lothian Buses has taken.

The number 10’s improvement in quality has generated not only local jobs at Alexander Dennis but at least one extra local job: that of the person whose job it was to confirm to the person who was recording the destinations that they had got the pronunciation right. However, Alexander Dennis is the great employment story. It has 1,000 employees, and its customers include New Zealand, Norwich and, on the Enviro400, Ottawa and Toronto.

Again, we see Scotland’s success not only in manufacturing but in technology. It is important to remember that the battery technology for those buses is heavily dependent on Scottish research and development. Scotland is at the forefront of such development.

An interesting aspect of the debate is that, in the past, the Labour Party called for clever procurement, but the Government created a fair competition scheme in which a Scottish company was uniquely well placed to win. I must congratulate it on that little bit of enlightened mercantilism. If the minister will not tell Brussels, neither will I.

A 30 to 40 per cent reduction in emissions was promised and a 59 per cent reduction was delivered. Thanks to the technology involved, once the batteries are upgraded—provided that the technology has moved on by then—the Lothian Buses hybrid buses will, I hope, be able to achieve a 100 per cent reduction in emissions and run entirely by battery.

We are starting to see that kind of future proofing in transport policy as changes are made to lever in action towards achieving the 2020 carbon targets. Public transport is the low-hanging fruit—it is the easiest policy area for us to influence directly—and I welcome what the Government has done. I would always welcome more.

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